Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 144

3rd International Conference on Arts, Design and Contemporary Education (ICADCE 2017) On the Space-depiction Techniques of Chinese Traditional Architectural Drawings

Peng Peng College of Architecture and Urban-Rural Planning Sichuan Agricultural University Chengdu, China

Abstract—Ruled-line painting is the best foundation of Yuan Dynasty, the word “ruled-line painting” has been research on ancient Chinese buildings. From existing ruled-line widely used and accepted as well as become the painting painting works, it can be figured out that ruled-line paintings branch which takes buildings as subjects. In Notes of Nan of the Northern have had a great breakthrough Village of Tao Zongyi, painting is divided into 13 categories, based on predecessors in the respect of manifestation with among which “ruled-line painting of buildings” ranks the regard to sense of space. A group of experienced painters of eighth as the drawing majoring in building subjects such as ruled-line painting at that time such as Zeduan, palaces, towers, houses and the like. Meanwhile, in Zhongshu, Yan Wengui and the like know a lot about “subtle Appreciation and Evaluation of Paintings, Tang Hou said: principles” of “Same Proportion as Material Objects” and “When it comes to paintings, we will say that paintings have “Hundreds of Diagonals Gathered to One Point”, whose 12 categories with taking the lead and works’ sense of volume, sense of space and sense of stability are universally superior to those of predecessors. Therefore, a ruled-line painting at the bottom.” Moreover, ruled-line form or framework of ancient architectural drawings basically painting is particular about accuracy of buildings’ shape and took shape at that time. In this paper, analyses on space- structure and lay emphasis on shaping sense of space. depiction techniques of Chinese traditional architectural “Drawing of Immortals’ Buildings by Guo Zhongshu” drawings before the introduction of Western perspective recorded in Painting and Calligraphy Album of Peiwenzhai theory are done through studying ruled-line paintings of Song gives us a feeling that we can walk into the painting and Dynasty. open and close its handrails, doors as well as windows, which reflects that architectural drawing at that time has Keywords—architectural drawing; ruled-line painting; achieved a great progress in the aspects regarding Hundreds of Diagonals Gathered to One Point; Viewing the stereoscopic impression and sense of space. As for how to Small from the Whole Perspective create buildings’ 3D sense of space on a 2D plane to achieve effect of “Feeling like Being Personally on the Scene”, just I. INTRODUCTION as what Guo Ruoxu of the Song Dynasty said in part one Architectural drawing, as its name implies, belongs to the “Talk on Model Production” of Overview of Painting: painting category with buildings as drawing objects. During “Drawing wooden houses should be done according to the the Wei and Jin Dynasties, painting with buildings as main same proportion as material objects with strong and fluent subjects was called painting of terraced building, just as what strokes and by gathering hundreds of diagonals to one point Gu Kaizhi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty said in Introduction of (parallel perspective) to create sense of space. Taking Famous Paintings of Wei and Jin Dynasties: “Though famous painters like Guo Zhongshu and Wang Shiyuan from buildings like terraced buildings and so on are complex, it is the time before the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties to the easy to copy their shapes with wonderful effects, which can beginning of the founding concerning our country as be achieved without “Transformation in Imagination Brings examples, buildings in their paintings, whose four cornices Unexpected Acquisition.” It is also known as painting of and dougongs (a system of brackets in Chinese building; “wooden house”, painting of “balcony”, painting of “palace” wooden square blocks inserted between the top of a column and so forth in the painting history and painting theory of and a crossbeam.) can be seen clearly, are drawn with clear Tang and Song Dynasties. As what “Concerning figures, and well-balanced strokes in accordance with precise dress, carriages and horses and balconies, it owns essence of proportions, which quite conforms to rules.”, it is necessary painting techniques both in the southern part and northern to obey “Same Proportion as Material Objects”, “Hundreds part.” and “Among painting branches, painting of figures is diagonals gathered to one point (parallel perspective)” and the most difficult, painting of animals takes the second place, “One Diagonal Followed by Hundreds of Diagonals”. painting of landscapes the third and painting of buildings the However, here come the questions: What kind of perspective last.” mentions, architectural drawing became an techniques are “Same Proportion as Material Objects”, independent category in the Song Dynasty. In the period of “Hundreds diagonals gathered to one point (angular Emperor Huizong in Song Dynasty, painting philosophy was perspective)” and “One Diagonal Followed by Hundreds of established with six branches, namely Buddhism, figures, Diagonals” specifically representing? What “rules” do they landscapes, animals, plants and wooden houses. Since the

Copyright © 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 306 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 144 conform to? There are no more written records in ancient with shift of scenes”, have almost perfectly solved this books. problem. Based on perspective rules, figures overlooked from high visual angel transform quite a lot, so multi- II. MULTI-VIEWPOINT OBSERVATION AND DEPICTION viewpoints are often used in ancient rule-line paintings to put TECHNIQUES figures of eye level into the background which is slightly As we all know, principles of perspective are established overlooked. For instance, in Along the River During the on the premise of building points of sight. According to , all figures appear as the images obtained painting traditions, “Focus Perspective” is usually used in from eye-level angle and with similar sizes as well as Western paintings, that is, an observer fixes a viewpoint and proportions, no matter they are sitting or standing and they accurately records things within his field of vision. Though are far or near. This problem is also talked about in Pan this kind of perspective rule has been referred to in theory of Tianshou’s Theory of Painting: “ By using bird’s-eye ancient for many times, there is basically perspective with an angle similar to 45°, long, straight and no spatial processing techniques concerning focus narrow garden are drawn and arranged, which makes perspective appearing in Chinese traditional drawings sceneries layered and have depths. However, this kind of including the ruled-line paintings which can show spatial perspective will cut the length of figures, which makes relationship in the best way. The classic work of ruled-line figures different from those from eye-level perspective and painting in the Song Dynasty, Along the River During the makes viewers uncomfortable. Therefore, painters of our Qingming Festival, is drawn by adopting the perspective country also put eye-level figures to the layout done through angle of looking down from high place and moving point of perspective of bird’s-eye view, which not only enables sight to break the restrictions of visual range. It makes landscape to be layered but keeps figures in similar shape to everyone feel like being guided to walk into the wharf of daily images.” Since figures observed from high place are Bian River and street along the river from the suburbs of quite different from those of daily life, eye-level angle is Bianjing (Municipality of today), then we reach the always used to process images such as figures and carriages Rainbow Bridge of the Bian River and continue walking into and horses, which, despite figures’ position in the picture, city along the main road at this end of the bridge, and finally enables figures to mostly appear in the eye-level state we stop in the downtown street, which is just the feeling that without changes caused by looking up or looking down. If we are personally in this place for living and travelling. careful observations are conducted, it is also easy to discover Meanwhile, this kind of observation method is mentioned by that steps and stairs of buildings in ruled-line paintings of the Guoxi of the Song Dynasty in The Lofty Message of Forest Song Dynasty are always processed as wide at the top and and Streams: “Mountains’ shapes in my eyes vary with narrow at the bottom as if we are looking down from the changes of the distance between me and the mountains, that steps in the drawing. Meanwhile, in works of ruled-line is, mountains’ shapes vary with steps. Moreover, mountains’ painting, nearly all tables and chairs, wooden benches, beds shapes vary with changes of the side we chose to face, that is, and furnishings are processed in the light of this way and mountains’ shapes vary with sides. Since a mountain has take on the inverse perspective effect of “the farther, the hundreds of shapes, it is hard to know clearly what on earth longer”. The reason, for my part, is related to painting habits the mountain is like.” To distinguish Chinese painting from mentioned before. For there is no fixed viewpoint, images Western painting in perspective technique, this kind of obtained from various viewpoints are gathered together. We observation methods, namely “Mountains’ Shapes Vary with can make a hypothesis that the painter enters the drawing to Steps” and “Mountains’ Shapes Vary with Sides”, is called finish it as if he is looking down by standing on the steps scattered-point perspective. This book also mentions: “Eyes’ instead of looking at the drawing from the viewpoint of a ability to appreciate sceneries is limited, so it is impossible to viewer as what focus perspective says as shown in “Fig. 1”. see all the sights ( for example, it is impossible for us to see ideal places like “Fantasyland”, “Mount Fangzhang” and so forth with eyes. ) To make up defects of our eyes, landscape existing in imagination is copied with writing brushes. With part of the imagined landscape is drawn on papers, imagined landscape becomes something that eyes can see.” Due to the limited vision of human beings, there is no way to observe scenery from a fixed point of sight in an overall and complete way. Therefore, painters’ viewpoint of traditional Fig. 1. Song Dynasty, Along the River During the Qingming Festival. Chinese painting does not have to be fixed in one place and restricted by fixed range of vision. Instead, viewpoint can be At this moment, “the farther, the longer” appearing in the moved as required. During the painting, painters can freely drawing is just “the farther, the shorter” which is felt by the put things observed from different viewpoints together in painter by staying in the drawing as shown in “Fig. 2”. line with their own needs of creation to obtain various atmospheres they want to create. There is no doubt that it is extraordinarily difficult to create such a magnificent, busy and lively scene just relying on painters’ actual observation. However, special observation methods in Chinese paintings, namely “moving-point perspective” and “movement of steps

307 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 144

Fig. 2. Song Dynasty, Along the River During the Qingming Festival.

There are not many reasons for this behavior, because it is just a simple artistic processing conducted by painters of ruled-line drawing according to the most direct visual perception. Besides, in the works of ruled painting, when there is a certain angle between buildings and observers, roofs will take on the phenomena of “the farther, the wider” and “ the farther, the longer” which gives us the feeling that roofs are lifted up with an angle and bird’s-eye effect is Fig. 4. Guo Zhongshu, local "Ming Huang summer palace map" . strengthened as shown in “Fig. 3”. The Summer Palace faces river with mountains on the back. Mountain ridges take up one third of the drawing while foreground building groups takes up two thirds. When it comes to perspective, almost all buildings are depicted from the angle of overlooking and slightly inclined left or right of the front side. All the lines vertical to the drawing are in parallel instead of gathering inward. Moreover, eaves of buildings’ side face, top and bottom lines of doors and windows, foundation lines and the like all extend as parallel lines with the same slope as well as have no vanishing point. For the harmony and unity of the painting, the lines of the same group of buildings which are vertical to the picture own almost same inclined angles, unnatural transition parts Fig. 3. Song Dynasty, Along the River During the Qingming Festival. between nearby and far-away buildings are covered and linked with mist, trees and stones of unobvious perspective, III. PARALLEL-PERSPECTIVE PAINTING TECHNIQUE OF and storey heights of all the buildings in building groups are “HUNDREDS OF DIAGONALS GATHERED TO ONE POINT” basically identical rather than changing with positions of Once range of vision is determined, we should consider buildings. Accordingly, “Hundreds of Diagonals Gathered to the extension direction of the scenery we see, namely the One Point” and “One Diagonal Followed by Hundreds of matter of spatial depth. In theory of Western focus Diagonals” said in the ancient painting theory, to my mind, perspective, the extension direction of spatial lines is just refer to the above-mentioned method in which the lines determined through vanishing points. According to the of showing depth are processed into oblique parallel lines, principle of the “the farther, the smaller”, the lines in “3D” based on which “Same Proportion as Material Objects” and space which are originally parallel to the picture are still “Paint buildings according to same proportion and specific parallel in the picture while the lines which are not parallel standards with little deviations” in ruled paintings of the with the picture are gathered to one point, namely the Song Dynasty are developed. Unlike techniques such as vanishing point. Based on the number of vanishing points, focus perspective and so on which enables angel of Western perspective techniques are divided into three inclination and sizes to be determined on the basis of categories: parallel perspective (one vanishing point), geometric graphing method, this kind of perspective angular perspective (two vanishing points) and oblique technique does not have quantifiable standards for length and perspective (three vanishing points). Different from focus slope of the third dimension’s lines, which, instead, are perspective, the pursuit of Chinese people towards spatial determined in the light of painters’ personal experience. depth is based on parallel method. Traditional architectural Generally speaking, the oblique angle mostly ranges from drawing is done by using a kind of quite casual graphing 30°to 60°, among which 45°is the most common. As for method concerning parallel lines without vanishing points, proportion, the length of the front side is scaled down in whose main characteristic is that all perspective lines in the terms of the original buildings’ proportion while the length painting are parallel instead of being gathered to one in the direction of depth is roughly scaled down in vanishing point. Guo Zhongshu’s Painting on the Summer accordance with half of the proportion regarding the original Palace of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty is an buildings. In Art and Visual Perception of Arnheim, this kind outstanding representative work of architectural drawing of technique is defined as “isometric perspective”, which can regarding palace, which is shown in “Fig. 4”. be divided into “isometric perspective of the front” and

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“isometric perspective of oblique plane”, as shown in “Fig. characteristic. Therefore, this kind of perspective is widely 5”. used in ruled-line painting works of the Northern Song Dynasty as well as becomes the mainstream depiction technique in the reproduction of ancient Chinese buildings. On the contrary, all the planes in paintings of “isometric perspective of oblique plane” are tilted compared with the picture. It seems that painters draw paintings by observing the inside from a relatively peripheral space far away from the ground, which brings feelings of dynamic and Fig. 5. isometric perspective of the front. uncertainty. Usually, this form is suitable for dramatic scenes and only accounts for a little percentage in ruled-line painting works. It is restricted to some special occasions or used as means to change and adjust composition of the painting.

IV. PICTURE-COMPOSING & VIEW-SEEKING MODE OF “VIEWING THE SMALL FROM THE WHOLE PERSPECTIVE” In the Dream Pool Essays, of Song Dynasty Fig. 6. isometric perspective of oblique plane. expressed his opinions on the way to compose paintings and seeking views concerning Chinese landscape paintings: When in perspective of the front, one plane of a 3D “Paintings of Li Cheng with regard to pavilions, towers and object is a vertical front in the picture and all the lines of the so on are all drawn by looking up, namely “Cornices Drawn third dimension which are vertical to the front intersect the by Looking Up”, which means that a person can see a plane with oblique angles, which are all the same to make all building’ rafter by looking up if he is in a position as high as the lines of the third dimension in parallel. Then this the bottom of a building. Actually, it is wrong. Observation perspective is called “isometric perspective of the method towards landscape is often that viewing the small front”.Distinct from “isometric perspective of the front”, from the whole perspective, which is just like a person “isometric perspective of oblique plane” have some simple looking at artificial hills. If we only want to depict the real changes towards the first one’s frame structure. In this visual sense, “seeing”, of a person in the real landscape and perspective, either of two axes’ directions of the objects has draw paintings by looking up from a low position, you can certain angles with the plane of the drawing in front of only see cornices when you put your eyes on buildings and viewers, every plane surface has transformation and you can only see one mountain when you look at mountains, shortening, and its space owns certain slope, which makes which absolutely hinders viewers to appreciate rolling the painting quite dynamic. When talking about these two mountains as well as vertically and horizontally distributed forms of isometric perspectives, Arnheim mentioned that ravines, let alone everything in the courtyards and back “isometric perspective of the front” possesses great alleys. On all accounts, it is impossible to draw these things superiority: this kind of perspective is a way to reproduce the mentioned above according to Li Cheng’s method.” In this depth of space by combining typical “front side” with “side paragraph, Shen Kuo clearly shows his negative attitude plane” which is tilted and shortened. It displays the 3D effect towards the phenomenon of “Cornices Drawn by Looking with the minimum transformation as well as keeps many Up” appearing in landscape painting caused by valuing objective characteristics of original buildings. No matter “the people’s real visual sense in real landscape. Just like what front” represents the front elevation or side elevation, this Shen Kuo said, if we stubbornly stick to the real visual sense kind of perspective maintains original shape and proportion. in real landscape and confine ourselves within fixed range of What’s more, those lines which gradually extend to the depth vision, there will never exist “rolling mountains”, “vertically of space also keep their objective proportion. Frame structure and horizontally distributed ravines”, “everything in of the space drawn in this way is same as that of the space courtyards and back alleys” and the like in landscape where viewers stay, which is relatively stable and motionless paintings, which means the loss of richness concerning in the work. Besides, this kind of perspective also reduces painting and feeling of being personally on the scene of the the uncertainty of the object caused by perspective landscape painting. “Viewing the Small from the Whole transformation as well as maintains the realness of the Perspective” is just the summary of the unique way of “known” object. He said: “this form is not used for the thinking towards Chinese landscape painting, that is, treating replication of physical cubes but to reproduce objects real landscapes as artificial hills and bonsais and observing naturally through media of presentation. Since the easiest as well as depicting them in an all-around and multi- perceptual structure and orientation are applied to it, perspective way. The form of art presentation, using “what paintings of this kind of perspective are not only easy to we know” to portray “what we have seen”, is always adopted draw, but also easy to understand.” The “isometric in ancient Chinese painting. In other words, Chinese painters perspective of the front” enjoys great popularity among of landscape painting seldom paint from nature like drawing painters of ruled-line painting for it not merely meets visual Western landscape paintings. Instead, they finish painting on requirements but also precision requirements of “Same the basis of daily travels and experiences. In most cases, the Proportion as Material Objects” with its quantifiable painting objects are not confined within one fixed viewpoint

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and specific range of vision and are drawn through moving V. CONCLUSION viewpoint. After overall observation, the painting of natural To sum up, perspective techniques of Chinese traditional scenery is created via subject thinking and feeling. In such a architectural paintings represented by ruled-line paintings circumstance, artists acquire sufficient freedom of creation to totally differ from those of Western Paintings which reflects create objects in their mind by using imagination without two kinds of completely different aesthetic tastes. In the considering the location for “copying”, which totally differs processing of spatial relationship, ruled-line paintings of the from the copying passion of Western People towards “what Northern Song Dynasty have formed a mode: Under the they have seen”. At first, ruled-line painting emerges as the perspective requirements of “Hundreds of Diagonals background of figure painting or landscape painting. Gathered to One Point” and “Same Proportion as Material Therefore it naturally inherits landscape painting’s way of Objects”, space should be depicted with parallel lines as thinking concerning the choice of visual angle. The so-called many as possible and beauty of buildings should be “the farther, the longer” is just the space-processing method presented through a bird’s-eye view in a distance. of pushing away and pulling closer objects in a relatively Meanwhile, with the help of ruled-painting of the Northern casual way, which is not restricted by fixed viewpoints and Song Dynasty, a whole set of perspective rules and depiction enables painters to master objects in a dynamic and overall techniques conforming to our national appreciating habits way. Just as what Guo Xi said, “Referring to landscape, only have been figured out, especially the nearly stylized if a person appreciate it in a distance can he have a depiction technique for buildings’ space depiction. Though panoramic view of the landscape including its various accuracy of the “proportion” used by ancient people in the conditions”, “Viewing the Small from the Whole ruled-painting needs further study, this kind of depiction Perspective”, namely the perspective requirements of long technique of space owns incomparable advantage over the sight distance, is an significant macroscopic observation focus perspective in many ways. Picture-composing and method adopted by Chinese painting. For instance, for the view-seeking way of “Viewing the Small from the Whole long scroll like Along the River During the Qingming Perspective” and “the Farther, the Higher” breaks resrtictions Festival whose scenes are usually quite big, it is hard to find of time and space as well as makes the space of Chinese a unified point of sight. But under the impacts of moving- traditional architectural painting pretty dynamic. Moreover, point perspective concerning “movement of steps with shift painters also break the limitation of viewpoint and integrate of scenes”, every part of the painting has its own visual focus visual impressions of multiple space together through and there are natural transitions among various parts: they “Looking Up and Bird’s-eye View” to depict everything in are linked with long bridges, rivers, or trees; With the the painting, which gives viewers a sense of being personally constant changing of viewers’ lines of sight, continuous on the scene. landscapes appear and natural transformation of space takes place; Painters can continue drawing this long scroll all the time without considering the matter of harmony. Furthermore, viewing and appreciating habit regarding REFERENCES traditional Chinese paintings is appreciating a painting part [1] Lu Fusheng. History of Chinese painting: ruled-line paintings of by part and moving point of sight gradually. So landscapes buildings [M]. 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[5] (US) Rudolf A; Art and Visual Perception [M], translated by Teng Through drawing the picture layer by layer, all kinds of Shouyao and Zhu Jiangyuan. Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Publishing varied layouts, complexly distributed courtyard groups and House, 1998. all the single buildings are unfolded before viewers’ eyes. [6] Tang Qi. Chinese painting theory of past dynasties [M]. Wuhan: Apart from this kind of observation method of long sight Hubei Fine Arts Publishing House, 2009.12. distance which is similar to bird’s-eye view, the distant [7] Yu Anlan. Painting Series [M].Shanghai: Shanghai Fine Arts views is often painted as the close views in the ruled-line Pulishing House, 1982. painting. For example, in Along the River During the [8] Pan Tianshou. Notes on painting of Cloud Pavilion[M]. Shanghai: Qingming Festival, the indoor scenes of buildings and all Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1980. kinds of words on horizontal tablets and couplets upon [9] Liu Dunzhen. 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